


Shortcakes and Fireflies

by DxTURA



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: F/M, Yamaguchi Tadashi is a Little Shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:08:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28244430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DxTURA/pseuds/DxTURA
Summary: Local guitar girl discovers what love is through OTHER volleyball boys :3cSeptember Fiverr Commission
Relationships: Tsukishima Kei/Original Character(s)
Kudos: 1
Collections: Urbinazation Works





	Shortcakes and Fireflies

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone, thanks for reading!!!  
> This fic was requested by a buyer on Fiverr. Should they no longer want it up on AO3, they can request me to remove it at any time!  
> I hope you enjoy!

Kei always prided on the fact that he was on top of his game—whether it revolved around his academics or his extracurricular. He was always aware of the date and time (he always antagonized or shamed others when they didn’t, too), but he wasn’t the type to pay attention to birthdays, holidays, or any sort of special event. Why celebrate something—especially when it could potentially put him in a position where he had to deal with hotheads and ungrateful people?

Still, as much as he put little effort and empathy into anyone else’s events, there _was_ someone that he always thought of that gave him a punch to the gut.

It was Natsuko, and – _unfortunately –_ it just so happened that her birthday was today. And he forgot about it.

The worst part about forgetting about the special day, was the fact that it was on one of the easiest holidays to remember—Valentine’s Day. He didn’t really care about the lovey-dovey atmosphere of the day itself, and often rejected any advances from people as the day passed on. Yet when it came to happy-go-lucky girl, it was different. Like, a lot different.

Outside of Tadashi, there just wasn’t anyone on his team or in his minor group of friends that was on the same field of caring as she was. It got to the point that instead of insulting or antagonizing her like he would anyone else, her bubbly “hellos” made him flush a dark red and merely wave back in turn.

He had a crush on her—he knew this for a fact. His team made fun of him _all_ the time for it. They wouldn’t ever let him live it down, that’s for sure.

If forgetting wasn’t already the worst part, then it was the fact that Kei had made plans with Tadashi after practice today! The moment the other boy got to the door, he was met with Kei’s expression twisted in a way that he would have thought to _never_ see in his life.

He looked like he had a fever (he didn’t), his body twitched and his fingers fidgeted. His headphones were all lopsided, and it looked – from what little he could see from the door opened – Kei had thrown numerous balls of paper here and there across the room. What was even more ominous, was the fact that Tadashi didn’t even get a moment to say hi. Kei immediately yanked him into the household.

He didn’t serve tea—he didn’t share a soda… No, he instead sat Tadashi down on one of the cushions near his family’s low table in the living area and sat right next to him. He sighed his frustrations out.

“Okay—first off, shut up. Wipe that stupid smirk off your face,” he pointed a finger towards the other boy, who had covered his mouth to refrain from snickering, “this is a serious situation.”

“Serious, huh? Is that why your face looks like you ate a bunch of spicy ramen and couldn’t handle it?”

“Are you going to keep messing with me, or are you actually going to hear me out? I need your help on something.”

“Oh? Is that why you’re so riled up? The last time I saw this was when we had that one match—”

“ _Ya. ma. gu. chi._ ”

“Alright, I’ll bite. What do you need help on?”

“Matsumiya. Birthday. Today.” Kei flopped to the floor and took some deep breaths. “Today is her birthday, and I forgot. I’m a fool, because I didn’t properly prepare for it.”

“You… were gonna prepare?” Tadashi’s brow furrowed. “You’re not really one to do that.”

“Okay, well. She’s different. I wanted to surprise her with something.”

“Huh. Okay...” Tadashi shrugged, though Kei wasn’t sure if he had his full support on the situation or not. He didn’t really let it bother him, though and continued speaking instead.

“I wanted to gift her something special—to show her that I care deeply about her, but I don’t even know what she _likes_.”

“She likes music.”

“Okay, but what _kind_. Jazz? Reggae?”

Tadashi looked at his phone as he spoke, “who knows? I just know she lugs around a rickety ol’ guitar to and from class on the daily. Some of the meaner girls make fun of her for not having anything too fancy and new.”

“Th-then! I have an idea,” Kei shot up to his feet and clapped his hands together, “why don’t I buy her guitar strings!”

Silence. Tadashi had an unimpressed look on his face.

“... _What_?”

“Tsukki, that’s nice and all, but… are you even aware of how much they cost?”

“What? They’re probably not _that_ bad, are they?” He looked at the screen that Tadashi flashed towards him. There were _way_ more numbers on the price tag than he imagined, “...oh. Okay. Scratch that.”

“Don’t expect to buy her any physical CDs or vinyls, either. Those are just as bad.”

“So, I should get a job, then?”

“Tsukki, you have volleyball and school. A job for _one day_ isn’t going to net you enough money, and I doubt there are any places that would actually allow you to do something like that.”

“I hate that you’re right...” Kei sauntered over to the fridge, grabbed two sodas for the two of them to share, and went back to sitting in the same spot he panicked in before. “So… what do we do? What should I do?”

“Well, you’re lucky that I actually took a look at my timeline today,” frantic tapping came from Tadashi’s direction. He coaxed Kei to sit next to him for better visibility, “check it out. This is what I heard a bunch of girls talking about today.”

Initially, the boy expected it to be some crazy expensive thing that wasn’t affordable by every single high school student if it was something _several_ girls were talking about. But, when he noticed that it was a digital flier on a webpage and _not_ a landing site for a shop, his eyes widened and his interest was piqued.

The decorative graphic talked about how there was supposedly a sweets festival—a tiny one, at least. Students all over the world would come to Japan, set up stalls, and introduce their country’s cuisine in hopes that people would have some sort of an enjoyable and immersive cultural experience. Each day had a specific theme to it, and that was all well and good, but the one thing that stuck out the most was the fact that they had fireworks and mini-games galore throughout the entire week.

It was like a mini _matsuri_ that involved eating more than dressing up in yukatas and the sort, and it took place from the evening into the night. Kei immediately whipped out his phone and made sure that he didn’t really _have_ any other plans for the rest of the day before he decided to consider this option.

“It apparently comes around every year, and today just so happens to be the day that they’re doing cakes and desserts.” Tadashi smirked. “A little bird told me that Matsumiya-san _really_ loves sweets, and what better way for you lovebirds to get along than to share some food under the fireworks.”

“A-are you _nuts_?! There’s absolutely _no_ way she would want to share a moment like th-that...” Kei covered his face the best he could.

“You don’t know that. That girl is something else; she approaches life with such a fresh perspective, it wouldn’t be hard to convince her. Besides,” he briskly thumbed his phone to the left twice and brought up his text messages, “I already sent her a message asking her to call you in the five minutes you were panicking about a gift.”

If there could be a record scratch in the room, it would’ve echoed by now. The bully boy’s voice rose so high, that his parents would’ve come running into the room by now if they were actually home.

“You WHAT?!”

“I texted her. You know, that thing with the fingers and—” Kei pulled Tadashi up by the collar of his shirt, “—h-hey, dude, chill!”

“You’re stupid. Like, _really_ stupid! So stupid, that I should’ve kicked your ass out the door the moment you came in the first place!”

“...But, you invited me—”

“I _don’t care_. She didn’t respond, right? Give me your phone,” the boy spoke a mile a minute, “I’m going to stop those texts from sending even if it killed me.”

Tadashi couldn’t say much more after the fact, as it was too late to do react any other way. As soon as Kei was about to go on a tirade, he heard his phone ring and instantly dropped his best friend to the floor.

Shit. His phone rang four times before it immediately went to voice mail. How was he supposed to handle this? Should he just reject the call and tell her that he’d text her later? No, that’s awful. He didn’t even text her “Happy Birthday,” so that would’ve sounded a little more suspicious than he would’ve liked. Should he let it ring and pretend he was busy? No, it would’ve made it sound like Tadashi was pulling a _really_ mean prank on her. That was grade school drama that he didn’t want to place on her in the slightest.

There was just no easy way out of this situation, so after Kei meekly glanced at his phone he shot one last glance at his friend before he scuttled out the front door to answer the phone.

And when he heard the sound of her voice on the other side of the line? His heart couldn’t help skipping a couple of beats.

“ _Hello? Tsukishima-kun?_ ” Her voice was like an angel’s … if angels spoke in a completely normal manner.

“Y-yes, this is he!” It was a stupid response—of _course_ it was him. She was calling his _cell phone_.

“Oh, there you are! Are you alright? Yamaguchi-kun mentioned something about you needing to talk to me about something? He said it was really important—actually, he spammed my phone, but that’s besides the point...”

Natsuko rambled on and on about the reasons why she couldn’t really respond to him; apparently, she was in the middle of some sort of baking activity with some of her friends and they had nearly set the kitchen on fire making cupcakes. She was _just_ in the middle of using the extinguisher on the oven, and had scolded them for not looking over the instructions more than once… she pretty much turned the conversation into a rant and rave, but it wasn’t _that_ serious.

If anything, it was _extremely_ cute. Natsuko herself was a big goofball, but when she had to make sure _others_ weren’t big goofballs? It somehow complimented her personality in ways Kei couldn’t have expected. He was drowning in her therapeutic and bubbly tone.

It wasn’t until she called his name out about five times that he broke out of his daydream. He heavily cleared his throat.

“ _Tsukishima-kun!_ Are you sick? Do you need me to come over and make you a soup or something? If you give me about an hour...”

“Ah—n-no! You’re fine! Sorry, Tadashi said something so stupid that I had to whack him in the head,” it was the worst lie he could come up with, but it was more than enough to keep the conversation going, “no, err… I’m not sick. I’m perfectly well, actually. It’s not really an emergency, per se, but I _did_ want to ask you something...”

Natsuko sighed in relief. “Well, it must be something serious if you couldn’t call me yourself, right? That’s unlike you! What’s on your mind that would make Tadashi text me so much!”

“W-well… I was wondering,” there was a lump in his throat. Kei _had_ to get the question out before she ended up hanging up on him, “I know you were probably a little sad that I didn’t tell you happy birthday, and I know this is very last minute and you’re probably super b-busy, but… uhm… there’s this cultural sweets festival tonight a-and…”

The boy felt like he was going to faint. He needed at least one _jug_ of water after this to calm his nerves.

“I was wondering if you w-wanted to go with me. As a gift. I don’t have much to give, b-but I heard from a lot of others that you really like sweets.”

He didn’t hear anything from her side for the moment, and his heart practically hopped out of his chest. What if he said something weird? What if she was interested in someone else, and she thought of him as a creep now? It was becoming a little too much to bear in the moment, and he almost had the instinct to hang up.

He quickly recomposed himself (or tried to, anyway) and spoke again.

“N-Natsuko, I—”

“ _You remembered my birthday_?”

He couldn’t really tell what she meant by that and stopped in his tracks.

“You remembered my birthday… w-wow, that’s so kind of you. Th-thank you, Tsukishima-kun!” He could hear other girls clamor on the other side of the phone, “I— _shut up, Kanna!—_ I would love to go! You’re not b-bothering me at all! Actually, it might help to get some fresh air. We kind of used all the ingredients we bought a couple of days ago, so they were just gonna go with me to the local bakery and buy a cake anyway.”

He really wasn’t expecting her to say yes, but he was glad she did. He could hear her trying to withhold a squeal on her side of the line, and tried his best not to point it out. She would surely be embarrassed if he did so.

“U-Um, do you happen to know when it starts? You didn’t plan on going now, right? Oh, I need to get cleaned up before I take the bus down...”

“O-Oh, no rush. It starts later in the evening.”

“I can bring my friends, right? D-do I have to buy any tickets?”

“No, but a flyer I saw said something about bringing money if you want to buy sweets to take home or something—”

“Th-then, it’s set! I’m gonna go break open my piggy bank and I’ll talk to you about it later, okay?! I’ll tell Tadashi to text me the flyer. See you soon!”

She didn’t give him any sort of leeway to answer, she just hung the phone right up… and in that moment Kei found himself sliding onto the floor like a puddle of goop.

There were a lot of admirers at Karasuno High, but none of them ever seemed to catch his attention. They would leave letters in his lockers or call out to him during practice, but he would never look at them in some light other than “his stalker fanbase.” There was only one confession that he received once upon a time, and he ended up thoroughly rejecting it because he didn’t even know who the girl was!

Yet, if it was Natsuko who did that to him, he’d definitely find himself angry about it and moping through his feelings on his own.

They weren’t in a relationship _yet_ , but he felt like was at least closer to the idea than he was a couple of minutes ago. Maybe Tadashi’s stunt wasn’t that foolish after all.

He wasn’t sure how long he had been outside his house, but Tadashi tried to open the door and instead found it blocked by the small of Kei’s back. He shrieked.

He peeked through the minor gap; it was just like in one of those horror movies he had watched with the rest of his team.

“Tsukki?! Are you alright, man, you look like you’re about to have a heart attack!”

Kei’s poor response was near incoherent. It’s like he had died and ascended out of the universe.

“...yes… festival… sweets…. Dreams...”

“...Eh? Tsukki?”

Tadashi did all that he could to slip through the crack of the door and utilize the strength he had to drag him back into the room. He couldn’t leave this boy alone for a second!

🌸🌸🌸

Five o’clock rolled around, and Kei had _just_ enough momentum to drag himself to the bus stop without a freak out and a potential flake move.

He had asked Tadashi to come along, but the boy made up some bullshit excuse and promptly left his house once they finished watching a couple of episodes of one particular show his best friend was psyched about. Figures. As much as he liked to follow Kei around, he also would not hesitate to ditch him if something of this caliber came up.

Still, it’d all be fine, right? What’s the worst that could happen to him? It’s not like Kei was going into one of those daredevil game shows that a lot of the other teens seemed to be into nowadays; all he was doing was going to a festival looking as sharp as he possibly could in some jeans and a dress shirt—although that wasn’t really part of the agenda in the first place.

Whatever, he shouldn’t overthink it _too_ much.

He rode the bus in silence, yet his body twitched and fidgeted the entire trip over. He had the itinerary for the event in a PDF on his phone’s storage, and had poked and prodded about it to the point where he practically _chanted_ the schedule to himself. People gave him strange looks every so often before they turned back to his own devices.

He knew the main attraction to the event was the food and fireworks, so he didn’t need to go _too_ ham on preparing a picnic or a fancy dinner. He reminded himself that she wanted to invite her friends to the tag along, too, so – in a way – it was kind of a relief that he didn’t have to go all lovey-dovey and romantic like in those random romance manga and shows he caught many others watching whenever his eyes briefly glimpsed everyone’s phones. Plus, there was _probably_ a couple of mini-games in the area; what kind of festival – food related or not – _wouldn’t_ have a fun little backup plan to work with.

The one booth that _did_ end up catching Kei’s interest was the little patisserie hosted by two European kids this year. They had brought a couple of cake samples from Sachertorte to Strawberry Swiss Roll, and the boy _really_ wanted to try their handcrafted strawberry one…

When the bus finally signaled for the next stop, Kei made sure that he had everything on him in his small messenger bag before he stepped out of the vehicle; he wouldn’t want to lose anything valuable on the way there because he was panicking, after all!

Judging by the map he printed off of his computer, the event plaza wasn’t too far from the stop itself… and lo and behold a couple of steps across the nearby sidewalk took him to a paved dirt path with a couple of banners and flags flapping with the wind.

The sunset gave just enough darkness for Kei to see a couple of lanterns flicker away in that direction, and when he walked into the event area he was honestly _shocked_ at the level of detail that surrounded him.

When he initially looked at the event map, there were some buildings in the area that all seemed a little _too_ close for comfort and too cramped to move around… he was glad to see that it was a lot more spacious than they made it out to be, though.

Though the event had only started about five or ten minutes ago, he came to find that there were at _least_ a couple of hundred people roaming around and talking about the area right now. There was a big iron pole directly centered which stated the different directions anyone could take to go through the narrow alleyways some of the booths covered to head to another section of the event. One led to food, the other led to games, and there was one that had a bunch of trees at the far end of it. From what Kei recalled, that area in particular led to the field that everyone would watch the fireworks at later in the night.

Festival and décor aside, what piqued the boy’s curiosity more than anything else was the fact that there wasn’t any sort of indication that Natsuko had arrived yet.  
  
The guitar girl was the type to be as punctual as possible—even if her friends were nothing of the sort. She seemed like the sensible type; if she was late or if something came up, then she would have texted by now, right? She has his number; he gave it to her after she accidentally attempted to text the house's landline more than once, so this particular situation shouldn't have been an issue...  
  
And if it wasn't an issue, then... why didn't she say anything yet?  
  
Kei was probably overthinking things now; his mind was kind of telling him that she only said yes for a prank, or something. She wouldn't _actually_ arrive. She probably thought he was too mean most of the time and gave him payback... the list of potentialities grew more irrational by the second, and any sense of logic that the boy had was now out the window.  
  
He could text her. Yeah! Nothing wrong with that. He could just send a simple "hey, you okay?" or something if it really bothered him. He didn't have to make it a big deal, but... why did it feel like he was overstepping every time he tried to type hi?!  
  
The only that broke him out of his "palms sweaty, knees weak, arm heavy" behavior was the notable high pitch tone of her voice coming from the far side of the path.  
  
"Tsukishima-kun! I'm over here!"  
  
Kei immediately turned around, but what he saw was not what he was expecting.  
  
The girl – who he had only seen in her typical uniform or her shirt and jean combo – was in an outfit a lot more flowy than their other counterparts. She wore a long, baggy shirt over some tiny shorts and she had this one pair of sandals with mini guitars on the straps. It was a little different than what he had ever seen, but if she liked it then he couldn't complain. Anything that made her smile made _his_ heart grow five times larger than before.  
  
And on top of several other pedestals he would die on, he found the minor eyeliner and lipstick she wore just fit the look. She was already a beauty, but it made it so much better.  
  
"M-Matsumiya-chan," his voice ran to the depths of his throat as she ran up to him, "h-hey! Good to see you."  
  
"Oh my gosh, I am _so_ sorry I'm late," she huffed, "the two girls of mine that wanted to come along made last minute plans so they said they both couldn't come in the long run. I'm so sad," the girl shook her fists up and down, "it would've made for a really fun time I think!"  
  
Something about the girls mysteriously disappearing made the gears in the boy's head stop turning, and instead his entire train of thought trailed back to the morning.  
  
Tadashi was missing. Yuki was missing. Kanna was missing. He knew something was up, but he wasn't going to question it now. He would have to ask at a later time—preferably when he _wasn't_ in the process of attempting to date a girl!  
  
Her laugh was innocent and charming; even with the sudden mishap, she seemed happy enough to be here!  
  
Oh! S-sorry, I rambled for so long!" Natsuko placed her hands against her shirt and tugged at its ends, "did I keep you waiting for long?"  
  
"Ah—no, I just got here, thankfully," he wasn't gonna mention his initial worry. "The buses were a lot quicker than what I expected them to be."  
  
" _You’re_ telling me! I wasn't expecting it to weave through the minor traffic," the girl bounced her eyes from stall to stall, "anyways... all this food looks yummy! Can we really eat for free?!"  
  
"There are a couple of gold-bannered ones, but those don't really say much other than the fact that you have to pay for the food there. I think they're both serving lunches and dinners..."  
  
"Did you eat yet?"  
  
Kei nodded, "I did, yes. A couple of, err, moments ago I had something before I left the house. I wasn't sure if the food would be too expensive."  
  
"That's totally fair; alright, then," Natsuko grabbed the boy by the wrist and trotted down the center most path, "let's go check out the games before we grab more grub!"  
  
The designated game area was slightly smaller than they would have expected, but not disappointing in the slightest. There were about four different machines and chairs set aside and each had a small event or gimmick to them to attract the crowds.  
  
The Sweets Festival was pretty standard; there was a raffle and lottery segment where they put a ticket with their name in a box they would later shake and pull from, and there was a tiny ball machine where attendees could win one of the big prizes that were behind them. One of them was a year supply of juices, there was a plushie shaped like a transformation between a cat and a cake... there was even a couple of archaically signed recipes behind frames up for grabs, too.  
  
Outside of luck and chance, there were a couple of games of skill in the area as well. One was the traditional "scoop the koi" game, while the other involved a sweet-themed shotgun and a bunch of candle-shape bottles. They were _really_ going at it with the aesthetic—Kei had to give props.  
  
Natsuko eventually settled on the shotgun game, and added a little skip to her step as they went to play it.  
  
The shelf behind the stand attendant and weapon of choice wasn't very big, but the pellets alone put everything into perspective. Natsuko would only allow herself to try twice before she gave up.  
  
She saw a cute plush of her favorite video game character, and she couldn't afford to lose it.  
  
After she slid to one knee, she propped her gun slightly over her shoulders angle and tilted her hea.  
  
"Just watch me! I'm gonna do my best!" She squealed.  
  
"Oh? You think?" Kei crossed his arms; he had never thought she would be so determined to see it through, but he would be lying if he said that he was curious to see how far her determination would go.  
  
Lo and behold his jaw dropped when she shot and shattered the big ticket bottle in one shot.  
  
"Th-the _hell_?!"  
  
"Aww, yeah!! I knew I could do it!" She took the plush and gracefully thanked the attendee before she turned to Kei with the biggest grin on her face. "Tsukishima-kun, look! It's a Palico."  
  
"A... _Palico_?" He was so confused, his face said it all.  
  
"Yeah. A Palico is this mascot-like cat from this one video game I play. He follows you around while you hunt dinosaur-looking monsters—it's so cool!"  
  
So she was a gamer. Interesting. Kei knew she played them, but she didn't seem like the type to fixate on anything that wasn't music. He didn't really play any himself, so he would definitely have to ask her more about it later.  
  
Maybe even give him gift ideas for the future and beyond.  
  
The raffle didn't make him any less surprised. Natsuko's luck hit its peak point and she got _another_ plushie. The koi one, though, broke their little nets almost immediately and they didn't really have the heart to try again.  
  
They did eventually weave through the crowd to try some of the many different sweet treats and foods that were given out the entire festival, but both of them took a big liking to one of the _other_ strawberry desserts in the area.  
  
Natsuko had noticed the boy smile bright when he ate a tiny serving of a fluffy strawberry shortcake, and bought a slightly larger one for them to share in the midst of the night. He had noticed her happily tote the box around, but when he inquired about it all she did was blush and say that it was a surprise for later.

The night went on and the two of them laughed and chatted away about their day-to-day life. Kei learned more about her hobbies and interests—like her love for dogs and her literature habits. He hadn’t realized how much he liked to listen to her express herself until she went on this random tangent about one of the “year’s worst songs” because her ear caught a hint of a song’s first five notes just by listening to the radio they passed. The day was filled with laughs, filled with fun, and was a complete change of pace overall. Natsuko even made sure to take a couple of selfies with him on her phone so she could remember the day for the rest of her life.

A couple of hours passed and the sun was instead replaced by the dancing stars in the sky. Two to three of the event coordinators came out from the crowds and had announced that the fireworks were starting as soon, and wanted to advise many of the people that were attending to head over to the cliff to find the perfect seating.

Natsuko squealed and bounced around the boy. “Tsukishima-kun, come on! We’ll miss it if we linger out here longer than we should!”

“H-hey, wait..!” His cries fell on deaf ears as she continued her tirade of pulling him to a place before he could finish.

Getting through the crowded area was a bit of a pain, but it didn’t take long to arrive on the other side. The trees were neatly pruned and there was a plethora of picnic blankets strewn across the grass. They even saw a couple of kids chasing each other by zig-zagging through a lot of the people. It was pretty cute, to say the least.

Kei was the one who picked out a spot; seeing as bratty kids annoyed him and he wasn’t the type to sit around crowds of people for long periods of time, he chose one of the picnic blankets closest to one of the bigger trees and set everything in a spot that was both safe and easy to remember.

Natsuko did her own setting up—though, not as crazy as the event itself; she opened up the little box that contained a medium-sized shortcake that could be split into two. Strawberries drizzled the top and snuggled with whip cream; it almost looked like a pancake with some extra designing done to it.

Kei was shocked; the only one that would really remember what he liked was Tadashi. He was _kind of_ aware that it was because of his petty behavior, but people shouldn’t have let his words bother them! It’s not like he ever _meant_ most of his insults.

...Okay, he meant a _little_ bit of them—but he swore that most of them were just to rile people up.

“Eh? Tsukishima-kun, is it not to your liking?” Natsuko tilted her head; he realized that he hadn’t taken a bite or thanked her for it yet. “Did they give us the wrong flavor? I can go buy another one!”

“O-oh, no… It’s just...” He scratched the back of his head, “I dunno. I’m not usually on the receiving end of things.”

“Oh?”

“Yamaguchi tries to make my birthday and other types of holidays like that a big deal, but I usually don’t pay much attention to it. Whatever happens, happens ya know? It’s not like I _want_ people to celebrate things with me.”

“I see…” Her suddenly lackadaisical tone threw him off.

He twisted his words around. “N-no, I’m not saying that I don’t like it, Matsumiya. I just—I… I’m not _used_ to it. I do appreciate though, I mean it!”

“Oh! W-well, if that’s the case, then… I’m glad! I would’ve bought another one in a heartbeat!”

“No, no, no, really. It’s fine. I love it...” Kei could feel his face burn a beet red again, and as much as he tried _not_ to show his excitement… it was just inevitable.

They divided the cake as evenly as they could with the forks and ate some more as they talked and talked. It wasn’t long before they both quieted down, leaned against the tree trunk, and looked up to the sky.

Kei had heard from several people that looking up in the sky as a source of reflection was a good idea when their mind was muddled or they needed to ask an important question, but he never realized that he would soon find himself in the same predicament.

There was no doubt about: he really liked her. He wasn’t sure if it was the fact that she was skilled in what she did, or the fact that she showed _him_ kindness when he was going to do it in return, but it made his heart race. _Everything_ made his heart race.

The only problem here was the question on whether or not she would be willing to reciprocate these feelings of his. He was never the type to find himself in such an odd situation, and no one he knew was around him for the moral support. It was a very scary topic—and there was something awful about being vulnerable at a time like this.

He couldn’t just dodge the question, though. The whole reason he even invited her was so he could try to talk about it or confess, so going home in silence would defeat the purpose of this. He scarfed down his piece of the cake, took a deep breath and tried to recompose himself.

The fireworks were starting to go off, but it was all the smaller ones first. He had enough time.

“Matsumiya.”

“Hm?” She had the fork in her mouth when she moved from looking at the fireworks to looking directly at him. “What is it?”

“Listen, I…” He chewed on his lip. How could he be so analytical and blunt for everything _but_ this. “If I, uhh… if I told you that I’ve been hiding something from you, would you be mad at me?”

“Eehh? It depends on what you’re hiding.” She blinked, then shouted, “you’re not a conspiracy theorist, right?!”

“ _Wh-what_? No!”

“Oh. Then you’re fine, then.”

She had caught him off guard so bad, that he wasn’t even sure how to continue. He tried his best, though.

“No, I was… I just… It’s a sensitive topic.”

“How sensitive are we talking?”

“U-Uhh…r-re… re...”

“Rehab?”

“No. Re...”

“Recollection of memories?”

She really had to stop interrupting him; her words were _actually_ catching him off guard, and at this rate he just might go home without saying anything else.

“Okay, sorry. I just wanted to _try_ and guess. What’s bothering you?”

“Re...relationships. I wanted to tell you something related to that.”

If her face was made of glass, it would’ve shattered by now. Natsuko dropped her utensil on the floor.

Her face was just as red as his, “o-oh… um… sure?”

Here it was—it all came down to this. It all came down to him finding the correct words and punching himself in the gut, and asking her the fated question. The question he wasn’t even sure would leave his lips the way it should’ve. The question that Tadashi – and potentially Yuki and Kanna – made fun of him for.

_That_ burning question.

“If I told you that I was hiding the fact that I wanted to be in a relationship with you, would you be willing to go through with it?!”

His voice was so loud that he found a couple of other groups of people jerking their head around to stare directly at him.

He had shut his eyes and bowed towards her, and he didn’t really see how she reacted other then the fact that she was making little whimpers and kept catching words that wouldn’t leave the back of her throat.

And judging by these little reactions, Kei was under the impression that she was never asked about these kinds of things before. He could _feel_ the fact that her gaze had left him; she couldn’t stop her stammering either.

The two of them sat in this weird and unsettling silence for quite some time, before she finally came up with an answer.

Initially, he wasn’t sure how she was going to respond—nor if he should take back what he had said. It was a loaded question, a loaded response. It wasn’t something that he thought she would answer in a day, and yet…

Yet he could’ve sworn, through the loudest firecracker popping in the side, that she agreed to it. And when he finally opened his eyes and looked directly in front of him?

Well. He hadn’t realized that she had taken his hands into her own all this time and had gently squeezed them through it all.

Maybe he shouldn’t have scared himself to death about it… maybe he should’ve just been more open in the first place, but it’s all okay now.

It’s all okay, because Natsuko gave him the answer that he hadn’t realized he wanted so much until now.


End file.
